Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Thanks to James Meek for his long report Excerpts The Western companies that make the best prostheses are working flat out. One of them, the German firm Ottobock, is supplying both Russia and Ukraine, a fact Ukrainians blame for the delay in the supply of spare parts, although I wondered if the Palestinians and Sudanese also have a place in the line. despite efforts at reform, the mobilisation system is corrupt, with the rich and influential able to find ways round it; that the army doesn’t value skills, but is only looking for cannon fodder; that if you lose limbs, you can’t count on being looked after. The situation is a miniature of the tridentine internal politics of Ukraine since the Orange Revolution of 2004: the archaic, populist, nationalist-patriotic tendency; the geeky, bourgeois strand, people who aspire to what they see as a liberal European ideal of personal freedom, communal fairness and the rule of law; and the cynical, apolitical, transactional, personal loyalty-based m...

“In 1986 the Economist reported that recent scandals had “raised doubts abroad that the City of London is the most honest place to do business”. Lord Roskill, the senior judge Margaret Thatcher’s government appointed to examine the state of fraud in the UK, agreed. ‘While petty frauds, clumsily committed, are likely to be detected and punished, it is all too likely that the largest and most cleverly executed crimes escape unpunished’, his commission reported.” That is in line with a Czech proverb: the big thieves hang the small ones. “The harder and more complex the investigations it [the Serious Fraud Office] takes on, the more it is fulfilling its mission – and the likelier it is to fail.” “Having ruled that the agency mistreated the Trio’s corporate empire [ENRC/Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation], a judge will now decide how much UK taxpayers’ money should be paid to the oligarchs’ company in damages. The SFO has set aside a quarter of a billion pounds.” “On 24 August 2023, 10 ...

“[S]uspension of normal safeguards was often unjustifiable, costing the public purse billions and eroding trust in political institutions.” Billions? Hang on. What about the migrants?  An aspect of ‘our values’

“ The threat of violence and instability impels the Chinese state to absorb and resolve disputes through legal and bureaucratic channels in which the state has a monopoly on decision-making and space for interest representation. The criminalisation of yinao reflects such state efforts to maintain social stability. However, the adverse impact of this criminalisation [...] suggests that the inability of formal institutions (for example, laws, courts, dispute mediation commissions) to resolve disputes could give rise to more social unrest.”

A hidden universe of suffering 

“ The key to understanding ‘what Putin really wants’ is not cherry-picking obscure phrases from his speeches and articles that fit observers’ preconceived biases, but rather conducting a systematic analysis of the structurally determined material interests, political organisation, and ideological legitimation of the social class he represents.” Related Political capitalism of the US

The bigger picture in this article is not big enough. While nurses and other workers go on strike in Britain, for example, one has to compare the social value of a professional football player to a nurse and their incomes, and how such obscene injustice has become acceptable and normal. The world Cup and the champion leagues are a capitalist industry run on the 5 basis of competition and profit. The question of class, exploitation and ideology are also at play. Money’s chokehold on modern football Related “We are all complicit in the system” in one way or another. We clap and cheer. We succumb to amnesia. We fill in our day with hypocrisy.

A South African TV series in 6 episodes. Available on sflix.to (VPN and ad block required)

Corruption, bribery, safety violations, etc.

Vladimir Putin’s savage attack on Ukraine has brutally brought to the fore the phenomenon known as “Londongrad”. Much excellent reporting in the past decade has revealed how corrupt elites from around the world launder looted money in the west. In  Butler to the World , [Oliver] Bullough takes the UK to task.  Butlering goes far beyond accepting deposits from the world’s corrupt: it extends to procuring (palatial) housing for them, educating their children, honouring them in every way from naming rights at Britain’s world-class universities to royal patronage, as well as catering to all the minor needs the super-rich might need. Bullough describes a postwar City of London determined to insulate itself from government regulation, ready to embrace innovations that would mean good business for financiers. He also highlights how in a world of hard currency shortage — withholding dollars was the means by which Washington made London give up Suez — there was a lot to like in allowin...

What made Russia and ‘the West’ engage in an unrelenting match on the dge of the abyss?

Can a poor country establish democratic socialism? Would imperialism, especially American imperialism, tolerate it at its backyard? Is Honduras an alternative to the Latin America’s ‘pink tide’ or is it just a continuation of changing horses between the right and the left? One of the good outcomes in Honduras is a confirmation that the question is not about more ‘women’ occupying high positions in state and government, but about the colour, the ideology and socio-economic programme of the ‘woman’. “I believe firmly that the democratic socialism I propose is the solution to pull Honduras out of the abyss we have been buried in by neoliberalism, a narco-dictator and corruption.”  – Xiomara Castro

  A liberal view. There no global economic-system and it’s crises, there is no uneven development, migration and capital, there is no class, there is no demographic pressures, especially of the youth, no lack of prospects for many, no precarity … Only abstract concepts such as ‘inequality’ and ‘lack of democracy’, without even being able to define what democracy or real democracy is. Asked what defines “real democracy,” Burke admitted it was somewhat subjective: “One person’s democracy is another person’s autocracy.”

This is not news; it’s been going going for years. “Rather than selling off the NHS  outright – a decision politicians know would be unpopular – they are instead doing this through the backdoor, by stealth.” The NHS is being privatised by stealth under cover of the pandemic

  How Bangladesh sold its future to the Gulf states

  How a Russian nationalist became a liberal hero

 Navalny’s return and left strategy

 It is a nightmare that Americans easily sleep through Related Birth defects and the toxic legacy of the war on Iraq

Some statements in this article are arguable, but there is an interesting analysis of the situation in the country. 30 years to the day since Nicolae and Elena Ceaucesçu were executed. “Capitalist restoration, which followed the December 1989 uprising, led to the large scale collapse of industry and agriculture, forcing millions to emigrate. The majority of those who have remained are confronted with poverty, low wages, job insecurity, precarious public services and a political caste that is solely in the service of capitalist elites.” Capitalist restoration in Romania and the alternative A better analysis can be found here Romania Redivivus

 Another page of the unfinished book of corruption in the UK, and especially in England. What will the “public” do? “I don’t care much. That’s how things are. Now I am looking forward to the vaccine to go back to my normal life.” Then comes the ritual again: we will cross a piece of paper “to make a change.” It is more likely that the Conservatives will be re-elected. Indifference is not only towards migrants ‘dying’ in the seas and the vulnerable in society, but also to cronyism and clientelism at home. Corruption of the City of London, the Panama Files, HSBC money laundering ... have not made the “public” even protest on the street. Faith combined with fear and conservatism are still working in favour of the ruling class.  Despite of what has happened since 2008/09, there is a general sense that the state has managed the crisis and the pandemic. The state intervened and has been paying those made unemployed. Thus the resignation. Cronyism and clientelism How Covid revealed t...